Kathleen went up The Fiddlers on Christmas Eve while Mrs O’Sullivan watched the kids. She was going to meet Collette Heaney there. It had occurred to her that there was every chance Brendan would be there that night. She’d mascara’d her eyes.
She remembered how they’d ended up laying on the dirt in a small clearing out near Long Kesh, his head on her shoulder, his cock beating inside of her. ‘Don’t go falling in love with me,’ he’d said.
If she felt the beggar when he said these things, it was her fault. She should do the right thing, and finish it with him. He reminded her of who she wasn’t.
Nevertheless, she was walking up to the pub with him in mind.
‘I’ll have to drop you up by Lenadoon and you can get a cab from there,’ he’d said, pulling his trousers up as he stood. ‘I can’t take the chance of being seen . . .’
‘That’s fine.’ Hands trying to make sense of her tights.
Driving back, few words had passed between them. As she went to get out of the car, he’d said, ‘Kathleen. It wasn’t just about the sex.’
‘Now why did you have to go and say that?’
Every time after being with Brendan, she was miserable. There was a reason adultery was forbidden, that it was a mortal sin akin to suicide; it killed you from the inside out. She’d been feeding something that ought not to grow and now she had to smother it.
When she’d stepped out, Mrs O’Sullivan had been reading to the children. If it was her there she’d have had the TV on and be telling them to be quiet, wishing them away.
She walked into The Fiddlers and saw that it was all men at the bar and she stood, a little awkward, and then when the widest man of the group turned round and opened a space at the bar to which he invited her, she smiled formally.
‘Me-eeh, ee-eh, and missus, missus Mo-ran . . . We got a thing going on . . .’
‘Hey Sean, it’s your other red-head,’ called out Flinty at the optic. Sean came across. ‘Well hello, young lady,’ and his breath was as rich as Christmas itself for he’d been on the brandy.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’ll have a glass of Martini and lemonade.’ There was a chorus of exaggerated approval and some mimicry.
‘Oh fuck way with yous,’ she said, putting a pack of cigarettes on the bar and causing laughter.
‘Mr O’Hanlon here is just after saying goodbye to his dearly departed mother-in-law.’
‘God rest her soul, I’m sorry for your sadness,’ said Kathleen, raising her glass.
‘What a wasted life,’ said O’Hanlon.
‘Och, shame. Did she suffer long?’
‘Did she fuck. It’s mine I’m talking about. When I see a fine-looking woman like yourself, I can’t help thinking what a waste to have spent my youth and looks on one woman. Wasn’t I Paddy the lad when I lived over in New York with my cousin, going with every girl, Italians, Costa Ricans, Jews – you name it, they were all after my Irish eyes . . .’ A laugh went up. ‘Back in the fifties there, when I was no more than a lad. Though I did have—’
‘Ladies present!’ shouted Flinty.
‘And my fiancée back in Belfast, my Margaret, she wrote me a letter saying, You must come home and we’ll get married for my poor mother is dying and it’s her dearest wish. And I come back and the old cow’s abed, back on Kashmir Street, and we got married and I moved in with them and that, as they say, was the beginning of the end. Last week the old baggage passes on at last, after twenty years in bed giving orders. Oh, but she could hop up to get herself a wee drink when she thought yous weren’t there! Teeth in a glass and “Oh I heard the most terrible noises in the night, thought yous were killing each other, what was it yous were after doing?” Seventy-nine. And good riddance! Now I can start living.’
There was a toast. ‘To Fergal’s new life . . .!’
‘Now I never went with an Italian girl myself,’ said Sean, leaning on the bar. ‘After I met this lady here I had eyes for nobody else—’ the men turned to look at Kathleen. ‘But I spent some time in Italy.’
Kathleen knew the story that was coming. ‘I’ll have another drink.’ She looked across at the mirror over the bar. She saw Collette and her husband coming across talking to people. In the corner she saw Brendan Coogan, rising from amidst a group, getting up to come to the bar.
‘Is your Dominic all set for doing the Santa then tonight?’ she asked Fergal. He nodded.
Her husband cleared his throat exaggeratedly in her direction. ‘As I was saying, I says to your man, pointing at the wee wedding day photo, there’s me, and he has a good look at it, and he gives me this look.’ Sean nodded with his lower lip jutting and his eyes wide. The group laughed.
‘Bella, he says, beautiful it means. He’s talking about her, there, the wife. And he brings out a gun, a Luger. I says how much, and he says four pound. I says I’ll take eight . . .’
Brendan Coogan was standing next to her.
‘Hello Mr Moran.’
‘Oh Brendan,’ Sean smiled. ‘What about ye? Bearing up?’
‘I am, thank you.’
‘And my lad’s all right? Keeping in touch with you is he?’
‘He’s sound, as far as I know.’
‘Let me buy you a wee drink there.’ Coogan shook his head, but Sean insisted.
‘A whiskey then,’ said Coogan. ‘Hello Mrs Moran, how are you doing?’
‘Not so bad thank you, Brendan.’ Kathleen stood down from the stool.
‘Excuse me a minute. I’ll come and have a word with you about our
Sean if you’re stopping a while.’
She went off to the Ladies where she looked again in the mirror and wiped the traces of smudged mascara from under her eyes with toilet paper.
When she came out, Brendan was at the side of the young group he was with. His eyes were quiet and dark as he watched her approach and he set down his beer. She took the chair next to him. The group looked at her briefly and went back to their discussion. He bent his head forwards so that it was next to hers.
‘I’ve been thinking about how I could get to see your breasts in the daylight again.’ He took a cigarette from his friend’s pack and offered it to her. He lit it, then passed it over, exhaling smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
‘You were right the other day though. I’ve been thinking about it, Brendan, we can’t go on.’
‘One more time.’
‘No. I just can’t, Brendan.’
‘Ah come on now, don’t look so sad and so serious.’ He nudged her elbow with his own and handed her his pint to sip from. As she drew the foam across the top of the liquid, she caught the eye of one of the crowd he was with, an older man from Andytown, and smiled. ‘Aye, that’s a nice pint, I’ve never tasted that before.’ Then she leant forwards and said to him, ‘Your mother asked me if you’d helped me out you know.’
‘Jesus,’ he cracked a smile and brushed a hand against her knee under the table.
‘It won’t be long before people get to know.’ She half rose on her seat, gave a curt wave to Sean and Collette and prepared to leave.
‘Sit a bit longer,’ he said, staying her knee with his hand. ‘Are you all right, Kathleen?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Look, I’ll keep an eye out for your Sean.’
She stubbed out her cigarette, glanced at the man opposite who was speaking to the woman alongside him with his eyes all the while on Kathleen.
‘Aye,’ she exhaled smoke. ‘Well just don’t let him die if you can help it. I’ve got to go now.’
The chair scraped, making a painful sound, and she went across the wooden floor towards the bar where Sean was letting Guinness run over the sides of a pint glass, looking at her.
The bar door burst open and Dominic O’Hanlon fell through, a garland of dirty cotton wool over his eyes and one round his neck, a beer-splashed red jacket, red trousers and a gnomish hat on his head. Two men close to the door moved to hold him up.
‘A glass of Guinness for Rudolph! If you’d be so kind there. And a gasper for Bouncer if you’ve one to spare.’